Many garments are designed for sale as matching outfits or sets. For example, a jacket and pant set, a jacket and top set, a short and top set, and other such combinations may be specifically manufactured to be sold as sets. In the sale of such garment sets, the seller desires to display these garments in a manner that makes it apparent that the garments are to be purchased together. Thus, separate garments may be hung on separate hangers and displayed alongside or next to each other, or the garments may be hung on a single hanger. The drawbacks in such display methods are that in the first example some frame or support is required to display the garments together, and in the second example sharing a hanger may obscure one of the individual garments that make up the coordinate garment set.
A benefit of displaying garment sets together is that the necessary display space can be significantly reduced. A further benefit of displaying such coordinate items together is to make it easier for the consumer to find and purchase such garments. It should further be recognized that the benefit of storing garments together may also extend to the transport and storage of such garments, in that such garment sets can be prepared for display prior to shipping to the point of sale, that is, the garments can be packaged onto their hanger sets prior to shipping to the point of sale as with typical garment on hanger (“GOH”) programs.
Moreover, in many cases, each separate garment requires a hanger of a different type, such as a hanger suitable for displaying a blouse used with a hanger capable of supporting a skirt or a pair of slacks. Hanger structures, in which two hangers are ganged together, that is, with one hanger suspended from the other, may be employed for this application. With such hangers, the attaching structure may be temporarily or permanently connected to a supporting hanger.
Hanger manufacturers have developed a number of different hangers for supporting lower body garments, many of which are provided with clamps having jaws movable from an open position to closed position, with means being provided to maintain the clamps in a closed position. Such hangers may be adapted to be suspended from a bar on a rack or other suspending member, such as an open loop, or other means such as a closed loop that allow the hanger to be ganged over a suspending means while safeguarding against the displacement of the lower garment hanger. The closed loop may be affixed to the body of the lower garment hanger by means of an intermediate member, which may or may not be integral with the hanger body and loop.
Sometimes, a lower body hanger is combined with an upper garment hanger to display a suit or other set of articles. Since lower body garments come in a wide variety of sizes, lower body garment hangers are provided in a variety of lengths so that the proper hanger size can be matched to the appropriate garment size. Likewise, the ganging member of the lower body hanger may also come in a variety of lengths. It would be advantageous if a hanger system were available to allow the displayer, retailer and/or packager of garments to vary the size of the lower garment hanger and/or the ganging member. Further, to insure the integrity of the hanger system, it would be advantageous if the hanger system were provided with a mechanism that maintains the loop portion of the hanger and the hanger body itself in a locked condition to insure that the components remain fixed during all phases of transport, display, and sale of the garments. Such a system would allow person to select the components of the hangers from a variety of sizes and lengths.